In the world of Eledees, strange and sickeningly cute beings known as Eledees are the world’s source of power. There is no gas, no solar power, nor petrol; just the strange electric energy which comes from the Eledees. One day, a mysterious lightning storm disrupts a small town’s way of life and causes the local Eledees to act strangely and in turn, throw the town into darkness. Concerned by the Eledees’ strange behaviour, Ed and Ana, two of the world’s most renowned Eledee experts, go to their laboratory to investigate the sudden turn in chaos. Unimpressed by their passion for Eledees, their son Kai decides to “borrow” his father’s Capture Gun in order to restore power to the household and as such, enable him to watch TV.
In the game’s story mode, your main objective is to build up a set amount of watts – the energy an Eledee transmits – under a time limit. An Eledee’s wattage depends greatly on their state of mind. If, for example, an Eledee is singing, they’ll give you a higher wattage than an Eledee who’s stunned or running away from you. There are also several different types of Eledees which adds greater depth to the game as they all react and move differently based on your actions, and provide a different watt charge when captured. After a while, lights and other machinery will become activated in the level which will allow you to start collecting Power-Eledees (more about them later). Additionally, some levels will have additional conditions such as “don’t break X amount of objects” or keeping noise level down to a minimum. The latter conditions are the ones which are more likely to see you fail a level but they’re far from restrictive in terms of the gameplay mechanics as once you get used to being cautious, it becomes second nature and you’ll easily be able to adapt.
Feel the love.
The real challenge of the game though comes from uncovering the critters’ hiding spaces. Initially, when you begin a level, there will be a few scattered on the floor and other objects including cars and benches but a majority of them will remain hiding in every little nook and cranny. Using your Capture Gun, you’ll have to literally pull draws open, shake Eledees out of bins, pull carrots from the garden, and even get turn on taps to spray them out of pipes. There are certainly a lot of clever designs implemented into each level and it will warrant a fair few replays as you’ll likely miss a few things that are only noticeable through multiple plays.
The game is primarily viewed in first person and uses the Capture Gun like a virtual hand allowing players to manipulate just about any object around them. This is done by pressing either the A or B button on the Wii remote to activate the charge beam and then once an object is selected, it will follow your cruiser, which in turn is also used to turn the camera similarly like Red Steel and other Wii first person shooters. As for moving about, the Nunchuck’s control stick is used to move around the stage while the Z and C buttons are used to crouch and stretch (get a higher view of the level) respectively. What sets Eledees apart from other first person-based adventures though is the unique way the motion sensing technology is used to open doors and, to a lesser extent, twist other items such as taps and clock hands. You have to physically twist your wrist and then pull the door open – it is something that, up to this point, has been left to a flick of the Nunchuck or a press of the A button. Also, by bringing the Wii remote towards you or pushing it away, objects that are under the influence of the Capture Gun will mimic your movements.
As one would expect though, limitations apply to heavier objects until you upgrade your Capture Gun by capturing Power-Eledees that are found by charging up an object and utilising it to solve small puzzles. Usually, the puzzles are accompanied by a one-worded hint such as “switch” which indicates you have to pull a lever or press an on/off switch. In the case of the word “action,” you commonly need to make an object rotate however, others are less obvious such as shooting a basketball into a hoop, smashing ice cubes on the floor; the list goes on. Once your Capture Gun reaches level 4, usually you can lift just about anything but if you are feeling a little mischievous and want try your hand at chucking buildings around, then reaching level six will prove a tad more difficult to achieve due to larger amount of Eledees required. One of the more charming fundamentals is the physics behind the gun. Basically, when an object’s weight is just under the Capture Gun’s maximum lifting capacity, manipulating it will feel a bit choppy and won’t feel comfortable. Once your gun’s capacity increases though, controlling the object becomes a lot smoother and eventually, you’ll only have to use the beam in short bursts to chuck objects across the sky.
Fly my pretty... Fly!
Aside from the Capture Gun itself, there are a vast number of temporarily lasting power-ups which can be activated by smashing them against a surface. A few of them include a vacuum power-up which allows you to suck up nearby Eledees and move multiple objects around, a shield which protects you from cannon fire and Eledee attacks; and a homing function which homes in on multiple Eledees at a time allocating a faster capture rate. The Capture Gun isn’t the only thing affected by the power-ups; there are a few which are designed specifically for the Eledees themselves. These include an EMP which stuns the Eledees and prevents them from escaping, as well as an Eledee Cookie that entices Eledees to come out of hiding and feast on the cookie, all the while being completely unaware of your ambush.
Unfortunately, Eledees isn’t completely bug-free and suffers from a problem that is, ironically, directly linked to the game’s main selling point. Because everything is interactive, it isn’t uncommon for players to experience slow-down in the more open spaced levels or when objects are completely littered all over the place. To be fair, it is bearable to a certain degree but much of the game’s fun factor comes from the speed at which the objects go flying around and with slow-down, much of the appeal is lost. Thankfully, there are only a few large open-spaced levels and most other levels won’t experience slow-down until the countdown is nearing the zero mark.
Aside from the story mode, Eledees also features three other gameplay modes per level which take the form of Score Attack, Eternal and Challenge and are unlocked by collecting hidden pink Eledees. As their names suggest, Score Attack gives you a set amount of watts you have to build up while Eternal mode allows you to freely explore a level without any applied conditions. Last but least not, Challenge mode offers players a series of fun, yet difficult, challenges which are designed to test your mastery over the Capture Gun and the sheer knowledge of the game’s physics. For example, one challenge requires you to obtain 100 watts worth of Eledees. However, the trick to it is there are only a few Eledees in the level and they are suitably placed at the bottom of a pile off mugs. “What’s so hard about that?” you may be asking. Well, you’re not allowed to brake a single mug – not simple a task, especially considering you’re also under a time limit as well as noise restriction.
Play musical Eledees by creating some twisted levels.
Eledees is also the first Wii game to take advantage of WiiConnect24 by allowing you to create/edit your own levels and then share them with friends and family by sending them to their Wii console (obviously they’ll be needing a copy of Eledees to play the levels). The editing feature is fairly fiddly but it allows you to use any object you've used the Capture Gun on in the story mode. You’ll end up with some pretty wild and down right weird designs such as creating a room with nothing but TVs and a single Eledee located beneath one.
On the topic of sharing, there is full-screened multiplayer support for up to four players and is a basic competition to see who can collect the most Eledees under a certain time frame. The camera is controlled by one player at a time and can be set so that it changes randomly during each session. A fun aspect of multiplier is that multiple players can grab the one object and either assist each other by moving it, or both tug away in opposite directions.
Visually, Eledees takes a hit in favor of its interactivity. Because there are so many manipulable objects, there tends to be a some simplified textures and environments. At the same time, it’s not breaking any new ground for the Wii and looks as if it wouldn’t have even pushed the GameCube’s graphical power. That being said, the number of objects can be as little as 50 to as many as 500 but no matter what, each one is completely drawn from the second the level loads.
The game’s soundtrack is a mixed affair. While in-game music has been implemented to provide a quirky feel to each level, at the same time, it isn’t memorable enough for you to be playing it through your iPod’s headphones. Each Eledee has their own distinct little shriek and cry when they’re captured but if you’re the sort of gamer who likes the sound effects of dying soldiers and explosive guns, it may prove a little too cute for your standards.
Despite a few issues in relation to frame rate, music and overall graphical power, Eledees is a respectable game for anyone to have in their collection. It makes great use of the Wii remote and has a simple, yet engaging formula which revolves around flinging objects in just about any direction imaginable and imprisoning… er capturing... little energy beings.
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